Hello everyone.
I am a bit discouraged to see some of the disappointed statements here, but if you have followed us on the Facebook Page, I have been pretty transparent about the issues we had and why communication has been virtually severed this spring. I also spent countless hours responding to thousands of emails (you realize how much time that takes?), which I also posted updates about on our Facebook Page. I see some here complaining they did not receive communication, but I know they in fact did recently, as I even got some responses back.
My communication is slow and almost non-existent right now (for past and present new customers) because we were caught up in the middle of an unexpected relocation at the height of the season.
In fact, we were without internet for over a month, because after we found a new spot, the company could not install it for many weeks.
Essentially, the land and office we were renting in Foley was sold to the neighboring hospital right out of under us. We were given 7 days to vacate before they starting dozing the area for development. At the same time, our private residence lease was expiring and we were already gearing up to move from there due to the rent going up over 80% higher upon renewal.
So we then had to find a location which would accommodate residential and business at the same time, and then move everything, at the same time, and we had a week to figure it out. At the end of the week, we landed the new location in Silverhill and then had to make more than 30 trips in a 26' Uhaul to move everything. Unfortunately, the new location was too far for my staff to drive, and we lost almost all of our workers in the move.
Meanwhile, my wife was nearing delivering a child during this chaos and was not able to physically assist me. I nearly conducted the entire move by myself from the furniture to many thousands of trees.
The new location did not have any irrigation, and though the land is flat, is still has to be bush-hogged to make way for getting all of our trees back into rows. The good news is this spot has 22 acres in the back and 3 up front, and will help us consolidate our nursery and much of our growout stock at the same location--preventing a lot of former back and forth we had.
So, after spending the past couple of months physically working 16-18 hours, 7 days a week, to try and get caught up, I have finally got us back to an operational state. Our office was just installed in the front last week, and this time we don't have to worry about a lease expiring or being nullified.
However, all of that said, it put us far behind during spring, and due to the crazy hours I have been pulling, I have been unable to communicate with anyone the way I normally do because I am out physically working rather than behind a computer or answering phones. I know everyone wants to feel like they're the only customer, but they're not--I'm dealing with a large amount of people regarding custom projects that take a long time to complete. I am the only one able to respond regarding custom trees, and just because I have not individually reached out to everyone during these past few months of absolute chaos, does not mean all of the work I did to the custom trees ceased to exist. Most of the ones complaining have completed trees which are now simply waiting in line to be shipped. I have a massive queue of completed trees, and it takes me awhile to get them shipped once in this state. During all of this, I steadily had scion and plant orders pouring in on the site which I also had to fulfill during the spring rush, and all of them were successfully delivered between the ruckus.
Due to the complexity of packaging these delicate trees (they can't be dunked in a box and shipped like regular trees and plants), each one takes me roughly 2-3 hours to properly box and ship. This is not an easy task, and is very time consuming.
I offered this service to the community since no one else is, and most are waiting very patiently for their trees to arrive. Well over half of what has been ordered from me has already been delivered, and everyone else will also get their trees the same as everyone else. Please be patient while I get this situation, which was well beyond my control, worked out.
I am doing all I physically can, and this whole experience has been gut-wrenching to say the least. I know it may be tough to see from the outside looking in, but I stand confident that I will deliver and give it the best I can given the circumstances.
Everyone who has received their custom orders has shared with me that it was worth the wait, so I am hoping that the rest will keep that same confidence that they'll have a custom they'll be proud of for decades to come once in hand.
Bear in mind, I have had little to no time for anything outside of this. I haven't been fishing this year. I haven't taken a day off except when my newest daughter was born a few weeks ago. I have limited help due to the move. I haven't been able to enjoy my own plant collection or hobbies due to keeping up with these obligations. When I was hospitalized due to an illness a couple months ago, I spent those few days responding to emails (which where many weeks behind).
I understand it is not fun waiting or receiving very limited communication from me directly, but I assure you that hasn't hindered any progress on the custom trees purchased from AKME and they will be shipped out--just know I can't do it all at once. There is a line and a process involved. I offered this service for $15. Considering I have these trees in my care generally 12+ months, and they've been moved, cared for, treated for pests and diseases, fertilized, manipulated with grafts (which sometimes fail and must be replaced), watered twice per day, housed on my property taking up space, up-potted as needed (sometimes two sizes larger by time of delivery), and in some cases even replaced (such as natural disaster/hurricanes), and incur 2x-3x the shipping costs by the time it is ready and deliverable due to increased size and inflation, I honestly do not make any money doing customs once all of this is factored in and have lost money on a number of them.
I offered this for the community who wants an affordable way to create multi-grafted custom trees, rather than throwing premades on eBay and selling them for 10x what they're worth. Yes, you have to wait a while for it, but are getting it at a fraction the cost it would be on an auction site.
I agree, my communication as of late has been terrible. I wish I had the physical strength and time to do something about it. I hope those of you who haven't received a timely response from me will be understanding toward my current dilemma and give me a chance to get caught up. Here I am, once again, up at 3:00am my time because I had a very long day but still needed to print some shipping labels for tomorrow. I haven't checked in on the TFF in a while, so logged in real quick and spotted this thread being bumped by legitimate concerns, so a response from me was certainly required. My wife is complaining because I often don't take time to eat and will generally wake up, hit the grind, and still be grinding after midnight. It is still not enough, and given that emails require around 15 minutes of my attention, each, responding to the extreme volume I am behind on is not exactly my priority because right now it is absolutely impossible--I just do not have the time. Finishing the work I am already committed to is, however, my priority, and I am working as fast and as hard as I possibly can.
If I only had a few dozen orders, that'd be one thing. However, in the past couple of years, over 2500 custom trees have been requested since we initiated this service, which boggles my mind once I think about how many grafts I have completed (some of those having up to 20 grafts on a given tree--which must be done 2-3 at a time on containerized specimens so they don't shock and die on me). We were hit by a hurricane at the end of 2020 and I had to redo and replace over 900 trees which either perished or took significant damages. While repairing those, I was already working on around 550 new orders, and I cannot even explain how challenging that was for me. Before, at least my staff ran the nursery and office while I focused on customs, but now that we've moved, I lost most of my staff until we find and train new ones, and almost everything has fallen on my head in the meantime.
I do not mean for this to come across as an excuse, but it is a reality we are facing and I hope to provide clarity for those who are concerned or annoyed by my recent silence. The lack of communication is temporary, however, and I am getting caught up very quickly due to the amount of work I am putting in. You'll notice, I did not market customs this year, and for good reason. While someone can still order them from the site directly, I have zero intention on pushing any new sales for them while focusing all my energies on shipping the ones already sitting in the queue.
I highly appreciate everyone's support, as 99% of the customer base has been wonderfully understanding and only a select few have caused a ruckus. Some people, unfortunately, either haven't provided emails/phone numbers, or have given us the wrong ones, or have protected emails that reject our server when responding, or fail to check their spam folders, etc. So, I have not been 100% non-communicative in certain circumstances. I have, however, been very, very slow, and trying to respond in the order received is about the most fair way I can figure to follow up to piled up emails and messages.
You guys hired me to graft and ship trees, not sit at the computer sending emails all day. If you saw the number of emails that pour in (especially in spring), you'd understand why I had to prioritize and focus moreso on the physical work. Plus, it is difficult to answer phones and emails when you're working out in the field the entire day with hands covered in mud. It was suggested to me to get a secretary, but when my own wife started reaching out to people, they all had the same response: "I want to talk to Adam, because he's the only one who knows anything about my custom tree." Well, there you have it.
I will respond when I can. In the meantime, please be patient and know your custom tree will be shipping out as soon as it is physically ready. I don't want your trees on my property any longer than they need to be, and want them in your hands soon as possible. They only get larger in my care and requires more work out of me, and become more and more expensive to ship. I have no intention holding them any longer than I must. My failure to respond right away doesn't mean they stop existing.
Good news is our new location is amazing. It was difficult, but due to a bad situation, we were made much better off for it. Now that I can consolidate properties, even short-handed, our nursery will operate much more efficiently. Once I am caught up with the back-log, we will be much faster in the near future on all commitments.
I want to continue offering this service, but I can now see why no one else does this. Negative feedback from slow communication due to high volume and local unforeseen challenges has me wanting to reconsider, and then throwing premades on eBay like everyone else does. I am not there, yet, but know I am greatly discouraged by this. Besides, I believe once I finish setting up our new location the way it needs to be, all of this will drift quickly behind as I streamline the learning curve and growing pains I've encountered.
Thanks for understanding and hope this helps to clarify and explain some of the concerns some of you were having.
